Montview Youth Blog

It’s been said that quality is never an accident - it’s a result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution.  That’s why MOB’S success in New Orleans is no coincidence.  While none of us deliver a perfect performance  all the time…we can offer our good efforts every single day.  The point is progress toward a goal - one painted wall, one wall mudded & primed, or one family out of a FEMA trailer at a time.

We found a really good balance of work and being tourists in Nola.  Today we finished up the work at the 4 project sites.  Lena & Roydin’s house  continues to be a work in progress but we were fortunate enough to participate in that progress.  Tonight they brought pounds of crabs and shrimp complete with limbs attached for a true NOLA crab boil.  We learned how to rip off the tails, ribs, back and head of the crab.  You have to really work that sucker for a tiny piece of meat!!! But it was worth it…the point is that they were thanking us for our work on their house and it was great to spend some time talking to them about their experiences the last few years.  Frank & Nikki’s house got a fresh coat of paint after their ceilings collapsed during Katrina, another Lena and her mother have been living in a FEMA trailer for the last 8 months with her mother while different groups try to put her home back together.  Those trailers are so small and it seems impossible that multiple people can live in one together.  True mental anguish comes to mind if you had to stay in one of those compartments for any length of time.  Yolanda had many tasks to be completed and that work site felt like good work & progress was made.  We have heard the word Hope used so many time in the 5 days we have been here.  People say it is good to know that we all care enough to come down and work and get to know each other.

This afternoon we went to Slidell, LA and jumped on a boat to get a close look at the Honey Island Swamp and the alligators that call it home.  It was a great day of seeing Cypress trees, sea lettuce, big birds, spanish moss, and the star attractions…many alligators including Brutus….the bad boy of the swamp.    Did you know they like marshmallows????  We learned that Katrina raised the water 20 ft higher than what we were on.  The river pushed through part of its banks and created a whole new part of the bayou.  One of the houses was ripped from its stilts and went down river and set up a new place  a few miles away…only 1 family has moved back into what was a thriving community previous to Katrina.   so many empty communities all over the area!

Yesterday Pastor Cliff of 1st Pres (where we are staying) gave us a tour of the 9th ward, pumping stations, neighborhoods, the canals that were breached and talked alot about life before and since the storm.   Tonight We have continued our tradition of Game AWESOME and added the new component of liturgical dance to the requirement.  We only wish you could be here to see how truly gifted the youth are in liturgical dance…could be a new Montview worship piece…It was Awesome..awesome, awesome, awesome!!!

Tomorrow we make our way to Edmond, OK to spend the night in another presby church.  We hope you hold us in your thoughts and prayers for safe passage because skit night and awards awaits us when we arrive.

Peace out……Katelyn, Claire and Sheri

While we have many, many more pictures, we thought you might want to see a few!
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A few observations to start off with:

Humidity is a real pain, but it does get more manageable over time. || New Orleans is a great place for people who love great food. || It is a LONG drive from Colorado to Louisiana. || Sometime buses break down. When this happens, though, you can always look to Brian Pendleton to save the day. Seriously…he’s amazing. ||

Even though we have been in New Orleans for only three days, we have already accomplished and experienced a ton. We have been working very hard. We have also been playing hard, too.

Our group splits up into small teams which head off to their respective work sites. All of our sites are houses which were ruined by the flood waters following Hurricane Katrina. A lot of us have actually met the owners of the houses where we are working. I never expected to meet Yolanda (the owner of the house where my team was priming and painting today), but I am so glad to have talked with her. She has given me the most vivid picture of what it was like to live in New Orleans before and after Katrina. Her house is about half a mile away from the banks of Lake Pontchartrain, which was where a lot of the flood’s water came from. After the levees broke, her house was submerged under more than twenty feet of water. All of her possessions were destroyed. She had left the city early and headed to Houston for what she thought would be a routine, hurricane-induced vacation to her favorite shopping town. Lucky her. Her next-door neighbor was found dead in his attic.

I heard this story and started to really understand what this city has been through. It’s unbelievable how they have persevered. I’ve heard that the city is no where near as vibrant as is was before, but it still has a really cool flavor. The population is very diverse and the many cultures are super vibrant. It would be easy for New Orleans to have just given up, but they haven’t. It’s amazing.

When we are not installing insulation or dry wall, we have been hanging out a lot and having a bunch of fun. We are all gathered in a big, old room in the 1st Presbyterian Church of New Orleans. No second has been wasted; we have been playing card games, memory games, playing music, talking, eating a lot of food, and occasionally sleeping. It’s awesome. Tomorrow we are going to see the fifth Harry Potter movie. That poor movie theater has no idea what’s coming…

Thanks for all your thoughts! See ‘ya later.

-Joe McManus

Hi Everybody!

So, it was really hot again today. But the weird thing is there are some times when you don’t even feel that hot, but sweat is literally pouring out of you. Anyway, for work today, some people opted to switch worksites while others chose to stay, so we were all mixed up with new tasks ahead of us! I went to Yolonda’s house, which, after Katrina, was submerged in over twenty feet of water. After things settled down, she told us, the house was only beneath 14.9 ft (only!). At her house, we worked to put the finishing touches on the dry wall and began to prime and paint. Primer (which is what you put on the drywall before painting to make the paint last longer) is difficult to apply because the drywall absorbs the primer. So you pretty much feel like you’ve put on about zero coats when you’ve really put on like, six. Brian worked on installing new windows, which looked amazing when he was done (does the Iron Man ever quit?!). Also, however, it is a Wednesday, and the rule of staying up ’til 2:00 and getting up at 6:30 is really starting to catch up with people. My group took an especially long lunch… followed by an especially long game of “guess the famous person” (we come up with the weirdest games here! But they’re SO fun, don’t even worry). I heard the boys in Sheri’s group had a water fight for an extended portion of the afternoon as well. We’ve found one thing to keep us cool though- snow cones. They have pretty much a million flavors and they’re only $1! So yes, we got some of those after work, and after coming back to the church to shower (my new #1 favorite activity), we headed to the French Quarter for dinner at the the Gumbo Shop! We had gumbo, jambalaya, chicken espagnole, red beans and rice. It was totally New Orleans. Upon returning to our home, we played our MOB initiation games, during which which all the freshman and anyone else new to the worktrip participate in some highly secret activities that include details I can’t readily disclose. Anyway, things are wonderful and everyone is agreeing on the fact that the worktrip is the best time of the entire year. We miss all of you a lot but don’t worry… we’ll be on our way back in a one million hour car ride soon enough. Love

Becca

It’s hot here. And very humid. However, this does not stop the hard working MOBsters in the effort to repair the Big Easy. We have been here for two full days now and all ready have had some new and interesting experiences. Things have been unique since we started our journey. On our way here we picked up a friendly and somewhat quirky passenger in need of a ride to a nearby truck stop. This truck driver/minister was quick to enlighten us about his life story. Through his thick accent we could only understand 20-30 percent of what he told us, yet we still managed to learn a lot from our new found friend. The most important lesson being “when your tired, drink ginseng.” Oh right, also “pray.” The road stretched for miles on end while we passed the time by playing various games designed for second graders. The bus proved its resilience by finally making it to New Orleans, however, it had many trials and tribulations along the way. We finally got to the church late Sunday night, and met Leroy, the site corridator for the church. After he and his incredible mustashe informed us of the strict boudraires and rules of the church, we all fell asleep. After two days of hard, HOT SWEATY work, we took a trip into the French Quarter in the evening. After furthering our knowledge of New Orleans life by walking down Bourbon Street, Denver looks like a hick cow-town. We ended the evening by scarfing down Beignets at Cafe du Monde, followed by a walk along the Mississippi River. The trip has been amazing so far and we can’t wait for the rest.

Hope all is well at home,

Chris D. and Scott

P. S. My knee is doing well dad.

It will be of no suprise to anyone that the light shining forth from this MOB group is alive and well all in Louisiana. We left Denver on Saturday, July 7 with 45 people in 5 vehicles. Our spirits were high and van atmosphere was festive! We hadn’t even left the state when our first encounter of an interesting kind happened…We met a card carrying Pentecostal Pastor who said he saw us in a vision and his vision required that we take him to the next truck stop down I-70. We had a great time talking to him and learned about his truck ministry and his South Carolina preaching ministry as we rolled down the interstate. From there we made it through Kansas and landed in Ardmore, OK at 11:30 pm. The hospitality of Pastor Rick Bagget was almost overwhelming. He was waiting for us complete with 100 hamburgers, homemade beans, handmade nail cross necklaces and even got up at 5am to deliver Daylight donuts to us on Sunday. It was very welcoming and the group was so happy to have made it to another beautiful brick welcoming Presbyterian church. We left on Sunday and felt confident we would make it to New Orleans by dinner time. Ha Ha…clearly other plans were in store for us.

We have decided a few things on this trip…first, never another bad word about Texans and second that the divine presence is as alive and well in Tow truck drivers as it is in Oklahoma Pastors. Our bus broke down in McKinney Texas due to the drive belt flinging itself off the round little sprockets(???..technical terms of course) We managed to find an auto parts store 1 mile down the road that happened to be open on a Sunday and through a combined effort we replaced it and were on our way never imagining that event number 2 was waiting for us. Somewhere between Shreveport and Alexandria we blew one of the “dulie” tires on the bus and we pulled into a country truck stop for help. Sure enough, we were introduced to our trucker tire fixer who proceeded to break 4 wrenches trying to get the lugnuts off the wheel, broke the air nozzle and then had to have his car jumped started when the work was finally complete. We did not see these events happen as we left Brian with the bus and the rest of us ate our way through Louisiana to try and get to New Orleans at a reasonable hour. We tasted our first crawdad pizza and rolled into 1st Pres. church of New Orleans at our favorite hour of 11:30 pm. We had no gear with us as the gear and Brian did not leave the truck stop until 1am so we slept on gymnastic mats and enjoyed the large fellowship hall and each others air conditioned company.

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